


sick and full of pride

by owlvsdove



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M, Gen, High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4935706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Maya starts singing, like really singing, singing with a purpose she finds in herself, her mother makes a deal with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sick and full of pride

 

When Maya starts singing, like _really_ singing, singing with a purpose she finds in herself, her mother makes a deal with her: she can go to as many shows as she can book, but only if one of her friends or Katy herself can go with her.

Maya agrees. Maya is filled with possibility and a love for her strange partnership with her mother, so she agrees.

_It’s more than fair_ , the little voice inside her thinks.

 

 

A few months ago, the five of them—you know who they are, she doesn’t have to say it—sat around Riley’s beat up laptop in the bay window and propped Maya up as a Future Star.

“In this age of constant social media usage, fame and fortune are more attainable than ever,” Farkle explains. And they all knew this in layman’s terms, but Farkle gives them a legitimacy they wouldn’t otherwise be able to muster. “The best way to get your name out is to create your brand and grow your following online.”

Maya feels like an exposed nerve, but she clasps her hands between her thighs and tries not to move. She’s been working on this. Vulnerability is an asset.

She’s been working hard on this.

Riley chooses her favorite photo of Maya to go on her profile, one from Zay’s birthday party last year. Zay knows how to throw a party for sure, but there’s a certain tenderness mixed with the more obvious ecstatic joy on her face that Maya isn’t totally sure of. Lucas pushes back on Riley’s decision for a mere moment before giving in.

Of course, he remembers what happened right before the picture: the way he leaned in, the way she reciprocated, the near contact. He has reason to object.

 

 

Zay, for his own reasons, reasons Maya understands well, only comes to a show if someone else is going. He has trouble sitting alone—well, he _makes_ trouble sitting alone.

Often he comes with Farkle, because the two of them developed a little bit of a bromance pretending to be Maya Hart’s Producer and Maya Hart’s Manager. Doesn’t matter how many times she contradicts them—that’s who they’ve decided to be, so that’s who they are. It makes them extra-protective, but in a way they probably would have been anyway.

Riley will come alone, because Riley can sit quietly and stare proudly at Maya _or_ she can chat to any nearby stranger about how proud she is of Maya. She claims that these are her two favorite pastimes.

Sometimes, though, she’ll tote along the entire Matthews clan, and even though Auggie’s getting a little old for it Riley will pull him up on her lap and whisper the meaning of life into his ear. And Cory and Topanga, to their credit, are enthusiastic every time. Sometimes too enthusiastic. Sometimes embarrassingly enthusiastic.

 

 

After Maya books her first show—after she climbs proudly through the window, announces to the room that she accomplished something, breaks down and cries—Riley gets her laptop back out and makes a shared calendar.

“We’re getting busier and busier. We need a way to keep track of everything so we can always be there for each other,” Riley says clearly, explaining exactly how they all feel but giving their earnestness a legitimacy the rest of them can’t muster on their own. “Maya will be blue. Lucas will be red.” She clicks her trackpad vigorously. “Zay will be green. Farkle will be yellow. And I will be—”

“Let me guess: purple?” Maya asks. “Is it purple? Are you purple?”

Riley bumps shoulders with her, unwilling to be grounded.

It turns out to be a good idea. Riley has finally grown into her limbs, which was the only thing holding her back from being the peppiest cheerleader the greater Manhattan area has ever seen; Lucas refuses to wait idly for baseball season, so he’s running track and he’s on the varsity basketball team; Zay has started speech and debate, trying to get some use out of his fast-talking, when he’s not also dominating the basketball team; and Farkle...is Farkle. When he’s not studying or auditing classes at NYU and Columbia or tutoring in algebra and chemistry, he’s—

“Sleeping, I guess.” And Farkle looks troubled. “Wow, I need a vacation.”

“And now Maya’s starting her _career_ as an _artist_ ,” Riley explains, and she enunciates those words to make them real. “So we need to keep track of everything.”

“You’re right,” Lucas says. Riley doesn’t blush anymore when he says that. “Managing school and extracurriculars is only going to get harder. We need to stay organized so we can stay together.”

When Riley and Lucas are on the same page, it’s not hard for the rest of them to agree.

 

 

Shawn is taking more and more jobs in the city, but he’s still not here all the time, so he only makes it to her third show.

Katy had taken the whole gang to her first show, and Riley brought her parents to the second. The boys have been planning to come to her third while Riley’s at a cheer competition, but as soon as she hears Shawn is here, Maya begs them not to come.

Katy takes the night off work. The Hart women feel butterflies.

Maya is brimming with so much _something_ that she’s afraid she’ll never get the words to any of the songs out. But she does.

Oh, she does. Shawn’s eyes nearly pop out of his head.

And Maya feels the adoration of two parents coming from the center of room, hunched over a little wobbly table with a little flickering candle, loving her and loving each other.

She just about dies from it.

 

 

Something about playing shows makes her see the importance of everything. Maybe it’s part of growing up (what Lucas says) or maybe she just has a head cold (what Maya claims), but she’s not acting like herself.

Case in point:

“You girls do know that you owe me essays on Thursday, don’t you?” Cory’s saying over dinner, and Topanga rolls her eyes, then looks at the girls to make sure they didn’t see. Maya did, but she has an answer anyway.

“I already did mine.”

“Very funny, Maya,” he says, tossing a tot in his mouth.

“I’m not joking,” she says.

And Riley can tell. “Wait, really? I haven’t even done mine yet. And he’s my _dad_.”

Maya shifts in her seat. “Well, I can’t do it tomorrow night because I have a show, and I can’t do it tonight because Riley has a game. So I finished it last night.”

“But you’re you!” he shouts.

At this point, Maya would have made a joke. She would’ve pretended like it was a fluke or an accident. But for some reason she just shrugs.

Topanga reaches over and closes Cory’s gaping mouth.

“Well done, Maya,” Topanga says.

And then Maya grins. “If I’d known this would shut him up, I would’ve done it a _long_ time ago.”

 

 

“Who’s going with you tonight?” Katy asks. Katy takes pride in asking this question. She set a rule, and her daughter, the rule-breaker, followed it.

It’s her one parental claim-to-fame. She’s keeping it.

“Lucas.”

“Just Lucas?”

Maya tries not to show any emotion about this. “Everyone else is busy.”

“Well,” Katy says. “I’m glad he’s going. That boy could kick all kinds of ass.”

“ _Mom_.”

“I’m just saying. Didn’t he use to wrestle?”

“Sheep, maybe,” Maya mutters.

“Alright, alright,” Katy says. She ties her apron. “Have a good show, baby girl.”

And Maya snaps closed the case on the old Clutterbucket guitar. “Have a good shift mom.”

 

 

“Riley,” Maya whispers.

Riley’s asleep. She knows Riley’s asleep.

“I have to tell you something.”

Riley snores gently.

“I want to try. I want to let someone see me. I want to let the world see me.”

Riley snores louder.

 

 

“I guess it worked out well,” Maya says. “I thought nobody would be able to make it to this one.”

“Yeah, well,” Lucas says. He looks uncomfortable. “I told you. Coach sat me out because I got injured in practice.”

“Ready to get injured again?” And Lucas looks confused for a moment as he pulls the door to the venue open. “Because I’m about to blow your eardrums out.”

He grins.

“You don’t play anything loud enough to hurt a fly,” he says.

She takes offense to that. “Sure I do!”

“I would’ve expected something a little more hardcore from you, Maya. Like angry girl rock. Grrrrr…” And he claws at the air. He’s _mocking_ her. “But your music is as soft as a breeze on a spring day.”

He’s _still_ mocking her.

“Listen, Bucky-boy,” she bites. “My music is hardcore because I’m the one singing it.” And then she flounces away towards the stage.

 

 

Maya sings about a lot of things.

She sings a lot about pain, about feeling scared and confused but pushing through anyway. Sometimes she sings about sex, because she’s a growing young woman and who’s going to stop her, really. Sometimes she sings about power—how she wants some and never seems to get enough. And sometimes she sings about love.

She doesn’t quite have that one down yet.

 

 

At this point, she’s done dozens of shows at dozens of places. But tonight feels strange. And she doesn’t figure out why until midway through her set, when Lucas’ eyes break concentration, look away from her towards his buzzing phone, and shoves it guiltily away.

He has no _injury._

She’s going to kiss him. Or kill him. She hasn’t decided yet.

 

 

“You lied to me.”

She’s already settled with the club owner and packed up her instruments, so the only thing left is for Lucas to walk her home. Like he always does.

He stares at her blankly for a moment; but he’s Lucas. He can’t hold up a lie for very long.

Not like she can.

“I’m sorry.”

Maya breaks into frustration. “Lucas!” she shouts. “You’re the quarterback!”

“Point guard,” he corrects, even though he knows she knows the right answer.

“They need you!” she presses. “You’re the star of the team. You can’t just bail on them.”

“You needed me, too.”

She freezes for a moment. “But this isn’t that big of a deal,” she says, much quieter.

“Yes, it is, Maya,” he insists.

“It _really_ isn’t.”

“It is! Because you care about it. And I want you to keep caring about things.”

He’s looking at her so earnestly she wants to drop through the pavement towards the center of the earth.

“I’m not going to stop caring just because I have to give up one show.” And then she realizes. She’s been doing this for months, and Lucas has always been there, getting to her before she could call to cancel with minutes to spare. Every single time.

“I’m just...I’m proud of you, alright?” He sounds frustrated. “I’m happy for you.”

“You’re proud of me?” Maya doesn’t mean to ask it so softly, to feel it so earnestly. She doesn’t mean to be staring at him like this. But she does anyway.

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

She blinks. And then she says, with a hand outstretched, “Walk me home, Lucas.”

He looks surprised. “Okay.” And he takes her hand in his.

 

 

Maybe it’s part of growing up (what Lucas says) or maybe it’s just a head cold (what Maya claims), but the stars are aligning; and Maya feels just fine.

 


End file.
